Hi All,
    I just want to give  MHO and .02 worth, Kathy D. is right on, in
America, if you can't buy something to 'fix' it, make it 'better', make
it 'easier', more 'convenient' or take it into the 21st Century - then
it is archaic and needs to be discarded.
    Breastfeeding, like childbirth are biological requirements to insure
that our species not only survives but stays at the best potential
possible. (Oh, I hear the voices screaming now, I was fed formula and
I'm just fine), I am simply stating a truth. Yes, I am among one of
those fed formula and I am 'just fine.' But now 42 years later, I wonder
if my passion for 'needing'  love, my allergies, my continual joint
aches and my periodic swings into almost deathly fatigue are not caused
because there was no motherly attachment (I was in the hospital as an
infant, hence the formula) and the use of formula.
    Medicine is just beginning to venture into some very interesting
studies of brain growth and development and it's affect on the person. I
wonder if one of the variables factored in is, breastfeeding vs SIN
use?!? To me, studies need to be done to emphasize how required by
biology breastmilk and breastfeeding are to not just the survival but to
also insuring the best potential of the human, now and in the future. A
friend calls the use of SIN, the dumbing down of America, I call it the
plasticizing of America - plastic food, given in a plastic bottle, with
a plastic nipple while baby sits in a plastic seat. And we wonder why we
have so many social and psychological problems in the US?
   I also want to paraphrase, Kathy D's comment, from a recent issue of
Mothering, coitus, childbirth and breastfeeding are biological
necessities of human survival, if we avoid them or displace them - what
will be the result? My mother gave birth in a time when you were knocked
out and woke up 'three days later' as a mother, it is understandable how
she had no problem walking away from me as far as being a mother. Now we
are just shifting it from childbirth to breastfeeding. Always want to
ask (but polite enough not to), if you don't want to be a mother, why
did you have a baby?

Leslie Ward